Legendary Radio Producer and Activist, Founder and Publisher of CityWatch
This column was excerpted from Jim Hampton’s obituary for Ken Draper. Read Hampton’s column in full at the following link, https://tinyurl.com/Ken-Draper-Passing.
Most knew Ken Draper as the publisher of CityWatch, but back in the 1960s, he produced radio shows in Portland, Cleveland and Chicago. Draper died at the age of 89.
Draper later founded in Hollywood a radio consulting and syndication company where he produced programming for radio stations all over the U.S. Draper then became the executive editor of KFWB in Los Angeles and created the ‘You give us 22 minutes; we’ll give you the world’ format based on all that he learned programming Top 40. This was a first for all news radio.
In the late 1990s, the City of LA approved the charter to create neighborhood councils as a grass roots way to connect LA’s diverse communities with City Hall. Draper helped launch Mid-City West, which was one of the first neighborhood councils and a model for others.
During the pre-charter years, Ken worked with long-time activist and political consultant Mark Siegel. Mark was monitoring the work of the Charter Commissions with his Charter Watch reports. Neighborhood councils were born when the Charter was approved in 1999.
When Siegel took a sabbatical from publishing in 2000, Ken converted Charter Watch into CityWatch. It began as a printed handout, which was published bi-weekly to an email list of a few hundred. If you attended city council meetings in LA, you would invariably see it in the hands of council members.
Draper’s longtime collaborator and friend convinced him to transition his printed newsletter to a website in 2002. Now, it is available 24/7 with twice weekly e-news blasts to more than 90,000 electronic subscribers and millions of users. The purpose of CityWatch remains unchanged: To hold City Hall accountable and to encourage grass roots civic engagement.
To do this, Ken enlisted the help of some of LA’s best writers, who week after week, year after year, provided original stories to be published on CityWatch. Their voices, their opinions. Left, center, right … it didn’t matter. Ken just wanted people to be passionate and involved.